IntroductionThere
have been many challenges in rebuilding the AVRev.com reference theater
(which I have previously written about and archived for Modern Home
Theater how-to features, with more details to come). One of the
challenges not discussed is what I was going to do with the living room
where my former reference system lived. Removing the large equipment
rack thankfully created more space that allowed for the sleek
installation of a lightly tinted glass wall. Removal of the
floor-to-ceiling, bird’s-eye maple media storage cabinet that housed my
Stewart roll-down screen also opened up some serious space. The design
challenge was unique, considering the entryway to the new theater, as
well as the stairs leading to the new addition, is exactly where my
Wilson WATT Puppy right speaker used to be placed – how could you get
great sound in a room or, in this case, a series of rooms, including
the living room, dining room and much-used kitchen, without placing
more big high-end speakers somewhere and having to create another
high-end audio system?

Roll the tape forward to the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show and a visit
to Lenbrook (the parent company of NAD and PSB) at a private suite at
the Hard Rock Hotel. The Lenbrook boys, led by Mark Stone, were showing
an in-wall version of their top-of-the-line floor-standing speaker. The
unit they demoed is the CW800E and make no mistake – these suckers are
for real. Sized at 38.5 inches tall by 14 inches wide and an amazingly
shallow 3.75 inches deep, they are designed to be a high-end,
audiophile-grade speaker that lives in the drywall, not on the carpet.
Compounding my personal need for the speakers was the addition of a
complementary in-wall subwoofer called the CWS8, which is a dual
eight-inch sub that also has a waif-like depth of less than four inches
and houses two eight-inch drivers. I did a demo in the suite with a
pretty complex installation for a hotel room and was floored. These
were not some disposable in-wall speakers that custom installers just
“throw into the wall” to boost their profit margin on a sale. With 30
minutes of listening under my belt, I knew these were speakers for
people who sit down and listen. I needed them.

Finishing the Room – InstallationIn
working with Beverly Hills-based Simply Home Entertainment for the
installation, we crafted a plan that would remove the media storage and
screen in a soffit on what was once the front wall of the theater,
replacing it with a 50-inch Panasonic Plasma HDTV that would be
recessed into a newly-framed wall. The idea was to leave enough room
for the plasma to breathe, but to flush the TV to the drywall. The PSB
set-up in the drywall would be for music only. This decision was made
mostly because of the way we use the house. Walking in from a hard day
at the office, there was to be a Crestron keypad on the wall which
would control the main system’s ReQuest F Series multi-zone music
server with color touch screen access. Another handheld Crestron remote
would be installed to run the music and the TV duties of the system.
Combining the music and the TV sound playback was possible, but we
found that it was pricey. The sub amp and the amp for the CW800Es would
be installed in the room that would ultimately be the gym, which is
right on the other side of the wall.

I
can’t speak about the ease of installation of the speakers, since I
wasn’t here when Simply Home’s Dave, Bruno and Ed were doing the job,
but I can say it didn’t take them very long. They work with all sorts
of in-wall speakers and commented to me later by email, as well as in
person, on how thin the PSBs looked, yet how hefty they sounded. This
was long before the room was finished. Another aspect of the
installation that needs to be mentioned is Lenbrook’s spectacular
customer service. My painter, who both Tim Duffy at Simply Home
Entertainment and I use for all of our projects and homes, accidentally
got paint on one of the CW800E’s grilles that didn’t come off easily.
PSB, at no cost to me despite the problem being 100 percent my fault,
overnighted me a new grille. When you have a crew on a job and the
hours are multiplying, it is the small things like this that really add
up. I was impressed with the level of customer attention and
responsiveness I got from PSB.The Music
You must keep the scope of this review in the proper context. This
$2,749 (each) in-wall speaker and $799 (each) subwoofer system were
given the very difficult challenge of replacing a $250,000 installed
theater, led by a pair of Wilson WATT Puppy version 7 speakers powered
with Mark Levinson 436 amps. In terms of price and performance, this is
an unfair way to judge in-wall speakers, but I am going to do it
nevertheless.

After
a solid 200 hours of break-in and thankfully restoring a level of calm
and lack of construction to my home, I was able to sit down with my new
living room speakers and do some listening. At first it was a few
half-hour sessions after work and before dinner with a glass of wine,
listening to my new classical guitar playlist. Andrés Segovia has a way
of taking some of the edge out of an edgy day. A nice glass of Clos Du
Val Napa Valley chardonnay ($15 per bottle) serves to take some of the
Diet Coke jitters out of the day’s events as well. Even at low,
conversational levels, I was pulled into the music by the CW800E’s
ability to resolve details. While my fiancée thinks I am insane (and
who would argue with her), you could hear percussive pops on the top of
Segovia’s guitar that echoed the resonance of the inside of the
instrument. The air around the strings sounded like what you might
expect from $10,000 per pair audiophile speakers in the room with all
of the trimmings upstream.

Progressing
into more dynamic music, I cued up some Bob Marley on my Roots Rock and
Reggae playlist. “Could You Be Loved,” from the Legend album, had a
beefy electric bass line with the kind of power and extension that I
had never heard from in-wall speakers. Marley’s vocals were focused and
lively with a bongy raspiness that you should expect to hear on his
records, even the more modern recordings. The percussion expanded to
widths that were far outside the physical boundaries of the speakers
and the backup singers offered smooth layering to the overall mix.

My
mellow jazz playlist is, to be polite, a work in progress. Just dumping
every John Coltrane tune onto a list makes for some great runs of
tunes, shattered by a handful of the most horrible tracks ever. I cued
up “Namia” (bonus track version), ripped in a lossless format, from
Giant Steps. I would play this track in my living room for anyone in
the audio or recording industry, specifically the occasional speaker
designers who make their way to my place. Never before in my life have
I heard this kind of width and presence from an in-wall speaker. Train
was beaming in ways that remind me of what I heard at Sandy Gross’ flat
in Manhattan on a tricked-out system with his Mythos speakers and
obscure tube amps. Please note that the Mythos were not in-wall
speakers. The idea of in-wall subwoofers needs to become more popular.
With less than four inches of depth, it’s shocking to hear how resonant
the stand-up bass sounds with this system. Decay times on the cymbals
were fully believable and the overall system seemed to perform in
harmony.

In
the event that you might be preparing to leave to run some errands
around the neighborhood or perhaps to kick the hell out of some
villains, you never know when you need some proper theme music. For
this review, I went with the Academy Award-winning “Theme from Shaft”
(Mobile Fidelity/Stax – SACD) by Isaac Hayes on SACD. With one of the
coolest, funkiest intros in music history, the melodic elements of this
song take on a three-dimensionality that you should only expect from a
floor-standing speaker. That is, until now. The wah-wah guitar pops
from the soundstage. The horns sound bombastic, yet not bloated. The
strings are lively, yet not bright. The cymbals are bright, yet not
shrill. Before you walk out the front door to conquer the world of its
evils, you might just sit down and jam on a music session if you have
the PSB CW800E in-walls. The vocals didn’t hold up in terms of balance
the way I had heard with the Bob Marley. Perhaps this is a factor in
the recording, but the most open the song sounded was in the
introduction, with all of the melodic instruments working toward the
first verse.

The Downside
These
are some of the best-sounding in-wall speakers I have ever heard at any
price. One thing I would like to see in a future version would be a
better way to attach the grilles to the speakers when they are
installed. There are slight EQ attenuations that you can adjust on the
speakers, but I had one hell of a time getting the grilles on and off,
especially after painting the speakers. The rubber parts that the
grilles attach to aren’t always receptive to the grilles, which can
torque one way or another, making it very hard to get them on. If not
installed correctly, the grille will rattle, which would ruin your
listening session. Perhaps a solution somewhere in the middle would be
suitable for the next revision of the speaker.

The
speakers do it all sonically, except for depth behind the speaker
depth. I asked a noted speaker designer if I was asking too much of an
in-wall speaker to expect the creation of space behind it, the kind a
high-end floor-standing speaker produces. The designer said that he has
never heard an in-wall recreate believable depth in the way I was
describing, so perhaps I am nitpicking a bit. It is also important to
know the advantages you get when you invest in the PSB T8
floor-standing speakers, which are not built into the drywall.

Conclusion
The
idea of comparing in-wall speakers to Wilson WATT Puppy version 7
loudspeakers is ludicrous, but the fact is, the PSB CW800Es paired with
a CWS8 in-wall subwoofer can hang. While depth and ultimate tightness
in the lower registers don’t hang to the ultimate standard, I can tell
you that I am not even one percent tempted to go back to the way I had
it. My room looks better than it ever has and I enjoy more music on my
PSBs than I do on my Wilsons. The idea of high-end audio and home
theater isn’t to geek out on technology so much as it is to make
technology work for your life. This PSB system does just that.

I am so fond of my PSB in-wall speaker system that I have thoughts on
ways to make them sound and look even better in the future. I plan on
adding a very thin fabric wall to the wall where the system is
installed. This will allow me to leave breathing room for the plasma,
yet hide any sight of the speakers. In a modern, minimalist-designed
living room like mine, this will only add to the drama of the music for
me, my fiancée and our guests. Additionally, I think I might look to
upgrade the amplifier when funds allow it. Take this as the compliment
that it is meant to be – you would not be wasting your money putting a
Krell, Linn, Classe’ or Mark Levinson amplifier on these speakers. In
my case, I might be looking at a top-of-the-line NAD power amp for my
PSBs. I am not sure how many dealers are showing this speaker system,
installed but take it on my word, it is worth signing off on in your
bid and getting into your walls. The PSB CW800Es, paired with the CWS8
subwoofer, are fantastic.